Forest dept asked for utilisation of corpus in 8 mineral-rich

Odisha govenrment has asked the Forest and Environment Department to prepare plans for proper utilisation of Rs 869 crore of OMBADC funds in eight mineral rich districts.
The direction was issued by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik last evening after reviewing the performance of the Forest and Environment Department, an official release said.
The money collected from the mining companies is deposited with the Odisha Mineral Bearing Area Development Corporation (OMBADC), a company created by the state government in April 2014 for the purpose of carrying out development activities in mineral-rich regions.
The districts which will be benefited from the OMBADC funds are: Angul, Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar, Koraput, Mayurbhanj and Sundergarh, the release said.

OMBARD has so far received Rs 869 crore towards the Net Present Value (NPV) amount paid by the miners for using the forest areas for their activity, the release said.
This apart, the state govenrment has also so far received only Rs 1,068 crore from the total receivable fund of nearly Rs 4,000 crore deposited by miners with the Centre as NPV.

Patnaik asked the state govenrment officials to take up the matter regarding release of rest of the amount with the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).
The CM said the OMBARD fund is meant for development of social infrastructure like provision of drinking water, sanitation, livelihood promotion, irrigation, skill development for alternative livelihood and supplementary income, the release said.

Besides, environmental upgradation, construction of roads, anganwadi centres, power supply infrastructure, health services, development of sports and other activities would also form part of the action plan, the officials quoted the CM as saying in the meeting.
The chief minister also stressed on early disbursement of dividends to kendu leaf pluckers for the year 2014-15. In 2013-14, the total dividend disbursement was Rs 32 crore. It was also decided that the leaf pluckers would be included in the 'Pradhan Mantri Bima Surakhsya Yojna'.
Patnaik issued direction for conservation of at least 500 places of worship by tribal people in forest areas, it said.

Last year about 200 tribal places of worship were conserved by the state government, the release said.